Gilbert Kaplan

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Gilbert Edmond Kaplan (born March 3, 1941 in New York City , New York ; † January 1, 2016 there ) was an American entrepreneur and business journalist who advanced as an amateur conductor to a world-famous interpreter of Gustav Mahler's 2nd symphony .

life and work

Gilbert Kaplan was the son of a tailor. He completed a degree in economics and founded the monthly magazine Institutional Investor in 1967 , which subsequently developed very successfully. In 1984 Kaplan sold the magazine for a substantial profit.

In 1965 he was so impressed by a performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 under Leopold Stokowski that, apart from a few years of piano lessons as a child, he concentrated increasingly on studying this work - without any deep musical training. In 1981 he took conducting lessons from Charles Zachary Bornstein , a graduate of the Juilliard School . In the same year he hired the American Symphony Orchestra and conducted it with the 1st movement of the symphony. In 1982 he conducted the complete symphony at Avery Fisher Hall in front of an invited audience; the performance was then repeated in public. Since then, Kaplan has developed into a world-famous conductor of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 and has led more than 50 renowned orchestras in performances of this work, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra , the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra , the London Symphony Orchestra , the NDR Symphony Orchestra , the orchestra the Deutsche Oper Berlin , the Bavarian State Orchestra , the Prague Symphony Orchestra , the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra , the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic , the Beijing Symphony Orchestra (Chinese premiere of Mahler's 2nd Symphony ) and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra . In 1996 he was invited as the first amateur conductor to conduct at the Salzburg Festival .

Kaplan's recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1987 was voted one of the New York Times ' Records of the Year in 1988. Sold in more than 175,000 copies, it became the best-selling Mahler recording in history. A second recording of the work under Kaplan took place in 2002 with the Vienna Philharmonic . Despite various awards, Kaplan's conducting skills were not without controversy. In 2008 members of the New York Philharmonic publicly criticized him for technical defects.

Kaplan devoted himself almost exclusively to Mahler's 2nd symphony , the only exceptions being the “Adagietto” from Mahler's 5th Symphony , which he also recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra, and Mahler's arrangement of Franz Schubert's string quartet Death and the Maiden . He also served in 1993 as a producer of Mahler Plays Mahler , a recording of Mahler himself in 1905 on a Welte-Mignon - Reproduction piano rehearsed piano rolls that in 1994 a German Record criticism received.

Gilbert Kaplan was a faculty member of the Juilliard School (Evening Division), lectured worldwide on Gustav Mahler and published articles about him. The Kaplan Foundation , which he founded in 1985, is committed to the maintenance and preservation of Gustav Mahler's work. The projects previously funded by the Foundation include the publication of facsimiles of the autographs of the 2nd symphony (Kaplan acquired the manuscript in 1984) and the “Adagietto” from the 5th symphony , a discography of all Mahler recordings, the pictorial biography The Mahler Album (German: The Mahler Album ) and the Welte Mignon Piano Rolls, the critical new edition of the score of the 2nd symphony (Kaplan was joint editor with Renate Stark-Voit as part of the Mahler Complete Edition at Universal Edition ) and the Restoration of Gustav Mahler's “composing house”. Kaplan also initiated the publication of Mahler's string orchestra version of the quartet Der Tod und das Mädchen von Schubert.

Fonts

  • Gilbert Kaplan: How Mahler Performed His Second Symphony. The Musical Times, Vol. 127, No. 1718 (May 1986), pp. 266-267 + 269 + 271
  • Gilbert Kaplan: The Mahler Album , 1995; 2nd extended edition: Brandstätter, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-85033-501-0 .
  • Gilbert Kaplan: The whole world in one note. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 6, 2002 (Original: In One Note of Mahler, a World of Meaning. New York Times, March 17, 2002; online )
  • Gilbert Kaplan: The correct movement order in Mahler's Sixth symphony. Kaplan Foundation, New York 2004, ISBN 0974961302 ( online ; PDF; 1.7 MB).
  • Gustav Mahler: Symphony no.2 in C minor: Resurrection. Facsimile. Kaplan Foundation, New York 1986, ISBN 0571100643 .
  • Gustav Mahler: Adagietto. Facsimile, documentation, recording. Gilbert E. Kaplan, ed. Kaplan Foundation, New York 1992, ISBN 0571513220 .

Recordings / sound carriers

  • Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C minor Resurrection Symphony - Benita Valente , soprano; Maureen Forrester , Alt; London Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra. 1988
  • From Mahler with Love. Gustav Mahler: Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 - London Symphony Orchestra. 1992
  • Mahler plays Mahler. The Welte-Mignon Piano Rolls - Gilbert Kaplan, producer. 1993
  • The Kaplan Mahler Edition - contains: Symphony No. 2, Adagietto from Symphony No. 5, the Mahler piano rolls, musicians' memories of Mahler and a CD-ROM section with 150 images from the Mahler album. 1996
  • Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 - Latonia Moore , soprano; Nadja Michael , mezzo-soprano; Wiener Singverein , Wiener Philharmoniker . 2003

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sad news: Gilbert Kaplan has died
  2. ^ Mahler Fan With Baton Cues Unrest in the Ranks , The New York Times, December 17, 2008
personal data
SURNAME Chaplain, Gilbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chaplain, Gilbert Edmond (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American business journalist, entrepreneur and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH March 3, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , New York
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 2016
Place of death New York City , New York